We finally approached the engine room floor. Like a blood hound Commander was looking around searching around like she was sniffing for her next meal. With a predatory look in her eye she got fixated on a location to my right.
"One hundred meters that way, there's an intruder. Capture them for interrogation. If not possible end them, with the least amount of collateral as possible."
She kept her beast like gaze on her target and pointed behind her in the opposite direction. I assumed there were two intruders and she was fixated on one of them for some odd reasons.
Regardless, I didn't want to think about it too deeply. I nodded once. The change in me was immediate—like a flame snuffed out and replaced with cold steel. My posture straightened, my breathing slowed, and the faint hum behind his eyes sharpened into a razor's edge. My Focus power activated, and the world narrowed into a tunnel of clarity.
I launched forward with explosive speed.
The ship's engine room was a cavern of metal and heat. Pipes hissed, gears churned, and the rhythmic thrum of the engines vibrated through the floor. My footsteps were silent despite his speed—focus power made sure of that.
He felt the intruder before he saw him.
A presence out of place. A shadow that didn't belong.
Baako rounded the corner and froze—not out of fear, but calculation.
The intruder stood at the heart of the engine room, crouched over exposed wiring and open panels. Sparks flickered around him. He worked with mechanical precision, hands moving quickly, efficiently, without hesitation.
He was dressed in all black, skintight fabrics. His gear seemed to be tailored to diving but his belt had an assortment of cartridges that no doubt held tools they needed. He was well built but more of swimmers build rather than a brawler.
His face was covered with a shawl and the only skin exposed was around his eyes. His posture betrayed nothing. No fear. No urgency. No emotion.
Just purpose.
I stepped forward, voice low and controlled. "Step away from the engines."
The intruder didn't flinch. Didn't turn. Didn't acknowledge me at all.
Instead, he reached for something at his hip.
A weapon.
I moved first.
He crossed the distance in a blur, his fist arcing in a clean, brutal cross‑punch. The impact cracked through the engine room like a thunderclap. The intruder flew sideways, slamming into the metal floor.
My Focus power changed the molecular structure of my body. I could speed up or slow down my molecules to become as light as gas, as fluid as water, or as hard as steel. I could also do the same with anything I touched. As long as I knew the molecular structure of the person or object.
Relaxing, I exhaled sharply—then froze.
The intruder's mask had torn away under the force of the punch. But what lay beneath wasn't right.
Not fully human.
Blood seeped from the torn flesh, but it was mixed with something darker. Thicker. Oily. It dripped down the intruder's cheek in slow, viscous trails.
I looked into his eyes again and noticed the reason they were unnaturally blue. They were mechanical filled with circuits.
Baako's stomach tightened. "What are you?"
The intruder didn't answer. He didn't even seem to care that half his face was missing.
Instead, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small device—compact, metallic, blinking with a red light.
An explosive.
If it detonated here, the engines would go up in a fireball. The ship would be crippled. Hundreds of soldiers aboard would die.
My muscles tensed. He could stop the intruder. Or he could stop the explosive.
Not both.
For the first time in years, hesitation clawed at me.
The intruder saw it.
And ran.
He bolted toward the exit, moving with unnatural speed, leaving a trail of blood‑oil droplets behind him. I lunged for the explosive instead, snatching it off the floor and crushing the casing in my hands. Sparks sputtered. The blinking light died.
I looked up just in time to see the intruder disappear through the hatch.
I cursed under my breath and sprinted after him.
The intruder moved like a creature built for escape—silent, fast, unburdened by pain. I followed the trail of dark droplets through the corridor, my focus power still burning behind my eyes.
He reached the outer hatch just as the intruder leapt toward the water below.
But he never made it.
A hand—strong, precise, merciless—snapped around the intruder's neck mid‑air.
There was a sharp, decisive motion.
And the intruder went limp.
Commander Nakia Stevens stood at the edge of the hatch, her chest rising and falling with controlled breaths. She let the body drop to the deck with a dull thud.
Her own intruder lay behind her—already neutralized.
She turned as I approached, the crushed explosive still in my hand.
Her eyes flicked to it, then to me. "Good work."
I shook my head. "I hesitated."
"You saved the ship."
"I let him escape."
"And I stopped him."
Her tone wasn't dismissive. It wasn't comforting either. It was simply… factual. Nakia never softened the truth, but she never twisted it either.
I looked down at the two bodies—one with a shattered back but still breathing, the other with a torn face leaking blood and oil.
"What are they?" I asked quietly.
Nakia crouched beside the nearest corpse, examining the mixture of fluids with a gloved hand. "Not standard infiltrators. Not fully human. Not fully machine."
"Hybrids?"
"Something worse."
I felt a chill crawl up his spine. The ship hummed around them, engines still running, oblivious to how close they had come to destruction.
Nakia stood, wiping her gloves clean. "We'll take them to analysis and interrogation. Whatever they are, they weren't working alone."
I nodded, but my jaw tightened. The weight of my hesitation still pressed on me like a stone.
Nakia noticed.
She always noticed.
"You did your job," she said.
"It wasn't enough."
"Maybe not. But we're still alive. The ship is still running. And we have two bodies to study instead of ashes."
I didn't respond. I stared at the intruder he'd punched—the one whose face had torn like wet fabric, revealing something neither human nor machine beneath.
Nakia stepped closer, her voice low. "Baako. Look at me."
I did.
"You're allowed to be human," she said. "Even when they aren't. Even when we expect you to be more than that. It's obvious to see your state of mind. You can't be judged as an emperor when you haven't earned the right."
I swallowed hard. "Hesitation gets people killed."
"And recklessness gets ships blown up."
Our eyes held for a moment—hers sharp and steady, mine storming with conflict.
Then Nakia turned away, signaling two soldiers who had just arrived. "Bag them. Carefully. And alert the science and interrogation divisions."
I watched as the bodies were lifted, the dark oil‑blood dripping onto the metal floor.
I clenched his fists.
Next time, he told himself, there will be no hesitation.
Nakia paused at the doorway, glancing back at him. "Come on. We have a report to give."
I followed her, the hum of the engines echoing behind them like a heartbeat—steady, alive, saved. She was a natural leader. I instinctively followed her despite my status.
It couldn't be helped. She was more experienced than me and her Focus power was something i couldn't even understand. At this rate, I have no more right to the throne than she does.
But the question lingered in my mind like a shadow:
Cyborgs had been outlawed internationally for over a century. If these intruders weren't fully human… then who—or what—had sent them?